


Independence 101

by MarlaHectic



Series: Post-Graduate In Friendship [3]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Post-Break Up, bad marriage, my tags sucks, religious talk, self discovery, shirley's sandwiches, woman finding a place for herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarlaHectic/pseuds/MarlaHectic
Summary: Just a glimpse of Shirley’s  life after she left Greendale. Finding herself and others in the way.(Yeah, terrible summaries are back!)
Relationships: Shirley Bennet/Original Male Character
Series: Post-Graduate In Friendship [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775257
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	1. Compared New Life

**Author's Note:**

> This costs me a lot to write and the only guidance that I had was that I wanted to give Shirley a solo time because she honestly deserves it.  
> I hope it’s just not too messy and over the place and that you all forgive my quick tipper and non-native speaker mistakes.  
> Oh, I have absolute no problem with being a religious person but, with the actual religious principal institutions, some ideas they defend and their way of doing things…kind of YES.  
> Allons-y!  
> Marla

Pain was not a word strong enough to describe what Shirley Bennett felt when she discovered that, even though she had certainly been far from a perfect mother recently, the vision projected to the world of how terrible her parenting had been had been manipulated by Andre.  
She was hurt, hurt deeper than she ever thought she could possibly feel when she found the papers that summarize all of her former husband’s plotting.  
All for what?  
To prove that she was not an exemplary mother? She was good (bad) enough to do that herself.  
To keep the children? Joke’s on him. Once she went to trial with the input in front of her, there was no way on Earth (nor Heaven, nor Hell) he would be allowed to keep custody (though she was going to pact so he didn’t lose touch, bitterness was in her soul just as much as forgiveness was).  
She would wait until summer break, so the rest of the remaining Study Group wouldn’t know. After all, some of the things…of her lack of care…were true, and she was too ashamed for any of them to know; she had already told them more that she would have ever wished to do.  
She just hoped they could forgive her when she, with almost all certainty, had to move from Greendale. 

What hurt even more was when she realized her own family and Church were also in on it. Her Church, the people she trusted more in the world (besides the Study Group), with only one explanation: “you were leaving the path of a good woman, something needed to be done”. Her family’s explanation was on the same line.  
Definitively, the change of scenery was something she was going to be thankful for.  
\-----  
Settling down in Atlanta was easier than she thought. She told the Study Group intentionally vague reasons of why she moved (she was almost certain Abed thought she was going as a detective’s sidekick, probably turning eventually into a love interest) and bought a flat small enough to be affordable while being big enough to shelter all her three children and herself without being asphyxiating.  
She used her savings to open a small jet more independent than a community college cafeteria business version of Shirley’s Sandwiches.  
Life was lonely for she didn’t have any real contact with anyone, apart from her children and clients. This continued this way until the day she saw a familiar face asking for a vegan sandwich (this time they were actually began, not as they had been back in Greendale).  
She smiled when she recognized the man in front of her, more wrinkly but not changed in any other way.  
“Father Rash! I was so sorry when you left our congregation…what happened? Nobody wanted to tell me…”  
The former priest –which used to be her favorite confessor, back in Colorado, from before community college- smiled sadly.  
“Let’s just say…I had a more open view of what the Church might look like and they didn’t like it…”  
Curiosity piqued her.  
“More open…how?”  
He seemed to understand she had gone through something somehow similar.  
“Let’s just say…we accept more types of people in more diverse roles.” He paid his sandwich, leaving also a card with the money. “Come tonight, you might like what you find. Good seeing you, Shirley.”  
He left and she looked at the card.  
‘CHURCH OF THE FREE SPIRITS OF JESUS. ATLANTA.”  
“Aw, that’s nice.”

If child-Shirley, the little girl she had been before letting rage took the best of her for enough years to make her so ashamed of herself to end up running into Christianism’s arms without any questions, had had to describe how she thought Church ad to look like, I’d have totally been what she had in front of her.  
All kind of people –some of whom she didn’t even have the vocabulary needed to classify them- were there, listening to a sermon about equality and empathy for everyone.  
The first days she attended, she just sat in the back, listen and spread a few “amens” and “that nices” here and there. She usually brought the leftovers from her business. It was great to see the poor kids of the neighborhood with a little less of hunger reflected in their eyes the following mornings.  
It was even more amazing to know that, even slightly, she was capable of changing the world for the better.  
When she finally introduced herself, it was just as Shirley. She hadn’t changed her surname, too many years as Shirley Bennet; more than enough for it to became hers, not only Andre’s. But, although she was proud of it, she knew she’d be explaining everything a minute after telling it.  
And she needed to be more than her back story; she had to be her new story.


	2. Science of You and Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shirley, her bussiness and her thoughts on the Study Group (definitively, I suck at summaries)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second and last chapter (is this becoming a regular thing for me? Starting one-shots and ending them being two-part fics?).   
> It has as much plot as the first one (aka, basically zero plot); so it’s just more into Shirley’s mind. I put it in a separate chapter because I wanted the first chapter being all about Shirley but at the same time I also wanting to give her some Study Group feels; so…I felt like this needed to be written appart.  
> Wish you enjoy and forgive my quick tipper and non-native speaker mistakes,   
> Marla

Shirley spent at least an hour every day studying, reading and researching about ways to manage small businesses and how to make them grow.   
Shirley’s Sandwiches was not just a dream, nor a way to make a living. It was a very real passion and something she felt as proud as she could be; she had even had some crazy ideas to make it become something more than just a sandwich place in Atlanta.   
She had been thinking for quite a while now about how she could use it to help out other people who had been rejected by those who were supposed to stand by them, as she and other people from her new church had been…  
…of course, she was not being completely selfless, for she also wanted the success she had earned day after day so badly it was almost a physical pain. To prove she could, to know she could provide to her children and, well, why to hide it, to rub it under the whole Andre’s Team’s noses.   
That day, however, she was not studying alone.  
“So…have you thought about including your college friends in your business?”  
She looked above her rented finances book (those things were darn expensive, thank God Atlanta’s libraries have almost all kind of books) at the man in front of her.  
She had met Jorge by chance, at the supermarket, just to find out later on his daughter attended one of her boy’s classes (and hated each other with fierce pain), almost like a rom-com situation (if she told Abed, she knew he would have been excited about this particular aspect of her new relationship). He was slightly younger than her and dashingly handsome, his wife passed away four years ago and, when they met, he had still been drowning in pain.   
…she had told him about her new church and he accepted going one day…  
…if she came by his side.  
The rest, as it is said to be discrete, is History. History that came into that moment, his question settling inside of her like a good cancer (if that thing had actually existed).   
“I don’t…I guess…it’s been a while since anyone spoke on the group chat…”  
He gave her a sad smile; there was no need of saying anything: the sadness in her eyes had told him all about her fear of losing all contact with the people that had become her very own found-family.  
If at least they had some short of ‘obligation’ to see each other every other time…  
…and idea popped into her head and she reached for the phone, where she looked for Britta’s number.

“Britta Perry, almost psychiatrist speaking. I am sorry I don’t know who you are, there was a Chang related incident and now my phone’s screen is no more…”  
“Oh, no problem, sweetie.”  
“Shirley?! Glad to hear a Study Group voice that is not Jeff’s, 24/7 sober him is even more annoying than before him.”  
“I CAN HEAR YOU BRITTA!”  
“Don’t be rude, mister! So…what did you want, Shirley?”  
She took a deep breath.  
“Prepare things, we are having a multi-religious winter holiday to prepare and…also a annual anniversary celebration next September.”  
She hung up, giving the blonde no chance to reply.  
She was enough by herself, that was true; but she had been, was and will always be more with her friends, no, her Family by her side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand this was it.  
> What did you guys thought? I am honestly asking because I am so afraid I have not made honor to such a great character…  
> Anywho, hope you enjoyed it and, as always, all feedback, random commentaries and kudos are so very welcome.  
> Long life and prosperity,  
> Marla

**Author's Note:**

> And…that was it for now. I have the second and last chapter technically ready to be revised, but something tells me it’s gonna need A LOT OF WORK and edition.  
> Did I named an original character after our very own Dean, Jim Rash? Heck yeah, why not? (I was a little short on imagination there, so naming had to be a reference; sorry not sorry).  
> Wishing you have enjoyed it and, as I always say, any feedback, random comments and/or kudos are very welcomed.  
> Long life and prosperity,  
> Marla


End file.
